Unfiltered Story #385654

Back in the 90’s, I was a student working nights in a small hotel in Paris.
The owner ran me through the audit process and the dedicated software.
No real issue there.

The last step of the process was the backup, done on a 3½-inch floppy disk.
She inserted the disk on prompt, then clicked the confirmation button.
So far, so good.
Then, a message pops up: ‘Disk full, insert new disk.’
She removes the disk and I was looking around for another disk to insert when, to my complete surprise, she inserts it again. The same one she had just used!
She then clicked through the confirmation messages and the system happily overwrote the data (old software, no redundancy check).

Her moves were smooth and fast, coming from obvious long practice.
I was so baffled I had no time to react.

I asked her why she overwrote the data and she said it was fine. They had tested it before and they could retrieve the backup.

I tried to explain that this was not working this way but she was adamant. One disk per fiscal year!
I needed the money, so I just gave up while hoping no issue would happen on my watch.

My guess is they must have tested the backup system at the beginning of the year, when the data was enough for one disk (1.44 MB).
There was no way a backup would work with a destructive operation like she did. Also, floppy disks were not that reliable. Using the same one as a backup for a whole fiscal year, constantly overwriting it, was insane for a business.
I tried to explain two more times, but she never accepted my explanations or even tried to test the backup again.
I worked for 6 months there and fortunately, nothing bad happened.